


The Way Home

by kradlethief



Category: Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 17:09:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/994457
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kradlethief/pseuds/kradlethief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While out hunting, Daryl encounters a stranger and a friend he never thought he’d see again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Way Home

**Author's Note:**

> Title: The Way Home  
> Summary: While out hunting, Daryl encounters a stranger and a friend he never thought he’d see again.  
> Rating: T for language  
> Disclaimer: The Walking Dead and its characters © Robert Kirkman  
> Author’s Note: Obviously this is ancient, written some time near the beginning of season 3 when I still had hope for Andrea and Team Prison. But it has been sitting on my hard-drive haunting me all this time and I couldn’t stand to see it unfinished, so. Here. Take that, Mazzara.

 

** The Way Home **

 

The forest was pleasantly cool this time of year, alive with noise the way only a forest can be, and a far cry from the stony silence of the prison.

 

The place as a fortress, Daryl knows – maybe an actual Godsend – and one for which he happens to be damn grateful. They all were, the whole group, even if Day One was a little more eventful than any of them were prepared for. At the end of it all, they’ve got solid walls, a high fence lining their perimeter, proper watchtowers, fresh medical supplies and enough food to last them all a good while if they ration carefully. There was even enough space to plant crops, not to mention the wilderness surrounding the place holds the promise of game.

 

And all it cost them was a bunch of ammo, Hershel’s leg, and the reality of sharing space with convicted criminals.

 

But it was Day Eight now. Hershel’s leg was healing up, the inmates were gone – the troublesome ones, at least – and for the first time in months, everybody felt . . . good. Okay. At least a damn sight better than any of them could recall feeling since the farm.

 

That didn’t mean there wasn’t still a laundry list of things that needed to get done. The cafeteria wasn’t going to stay full forever, to begin with, and Daryl saw no reason not to keep hunting on the side. If nothing else it provided an excuse to disappear on his own for a while, away from the suffocating collapse of Rick and Lori’s marriage, T-Dog’s incessant need to think out loud, Beth’s snoring, the sounds Maggie and Glenn were making in their cell at night (“maybe y’all should get your own cell block,” he’d wanted to suggest earlier at breakfast), and the countless other headaches that come with living in a group.

 

Out here, Daryl could almost pretend this was just a casual hunt on a lazy Saturday afternoon before having the option of returning to civilization – if he felt so inclined. Which, normally, he wasn’t. But the illusion was powerful enough just to be tempting, for all that he wasn’t prone to nostalgia. It had been days since he’d seen any walkers, other than the stragglers in the prison yard, and before the inmates they hadn’t come face to face with any other survivors in untold weeks. It was like this part of Georgia was just . . . forgotten. Empty.

_Ours._

 

He inwardly balked at the idea. Wasn’t smart, getting too comfortable. Not here, not anywhere. Ever. Good things never lasted long in his life, even before the world went to shit, and he knew better than to trust the feeling of security. _That_ was the illusion.

 

But the realization that a week had already flown by gave him some pause as he crouched to examine a pile of wild pig scat.

 

Eight days they’d been settling in at the prison, after eight months of running and too many close calls to count. Wondering if the next winter would finish them off properly, if not some wandering herd or marauding gang of thugs. Hard to believe any of them had made it this far – and yes, Daryl included himself in that equation. There are a lot of upsides to traveling with a group; safety in numbers, for one, not to mention the pooling of resources. The downside, of course, being that eventually you get softer than a wet box of kittens. You get attached. You get stupid. How many times has he risked his neck for Rick? For Carl, Glenn, and Carol? Time and time again he did it, for each and every one of them, even the ones he didn’t like all that much.

 

Oddly enough, part of him did it out of selfishness. He didn’t want to turn his back on any of them or leave someone behind again because, quite simply, it made his insides hurt. Against his better judgment, he let them all get under his skin and the idea of losing someone else was no longer acceptable. Especially after Merle. After Sophia.

 

After Andrea.

 

Grimacing, he rose to his feet and tried not to acknowledge the punch of guilt that hit him square in the nuts every time he thought about her, even now, eight months later. He’d more or less made peace with what happened to his brother and Sophia, but leaving Andrea back at the farm never really stopped eating away at him. For the most part he could ignore it, slam it behind a door in his mind labeled ‘Andrea’ and let it rot somewhere in the dark while he tended to more immediate concerns. He’s got a lot of doors like that. One for Merle, one for Sophia, one marked ‘Dad’, ‘Mom’, ‘foster home’, ‘school’, ‘hospital’ – one for all the painful shit in his life he’d like to forget but can’t.

 

But with Merle, he had at least done something. He marched straight into Atlanta to get him back, just like he marched into the woods day after day to find Sophia. With Andrea, he didn’t even try. None of them did. Nobody had even made sure she was actually dead before taking off.

 

 _You got two choices_ , he reminded himself, realizing with an irritated scowl that he was still hovering over a pile of hog shit. _Stand around feelin’ sorry for yourself, or track this damn thing. Can’t do both._

 

 Giving his head a hard shake, dislodging another ghost from thought, he resumed the hunt.

 

000000

 

Three hours later, he had the fat sonvabitch in his sights when he heard it.

 

For a second he brushed it off; too busy lining up his shot, ordering himself to quit imagining things and concentrate.

 

It was a huge boar, healthy and in the prime of his life, snuffling under a rotten log in search of grubs. Handsome, even, if you had an eye for that kind of thing. Almost a shame to have to kill it, but those powerful jaws crunching noisily offered the perfect mask for Daryl’s approach. Too good to pass up.

 

He slowed his breathing, carefully lifting the crossbow and taking his time where he squatted in the bushes. It had to be pure luck, the hog stopping for chow in the middle of a small clearing. Nothing to obscure the shot, no immediate place for it to hide if it tried to bolt. He couldn’t afford to rush and miss this catch; a hunk of meat that size could feed the group for weeks. It was bad enough he’d probably have to leave the kill unattended for a bit while he made a run back to the prison to get some extra muscle. No way could he drag a mother that size all by himself, unless he planned on butchering it here and now, carrying the pieces back over a multiple trips. With just his buck knife, however, the task would take hours and, frankly, he didn’t want that much fresh blood caught in the air. Not unless he could avoid it.

 

But the second time he heard it, the boar did too. It promptly stopped chewing and raised its head, an earthworm wriggling free of its bottom lip as its ears swiveled around to pinpoint the sound.

 

Daryl frowned. There was no mistaking it now. Sounded like…chains.

 

 _The hell,_ he mused. His eyes strained past the boar to the trees on the other side of the clearing, where he could have sworn he spotted movement. Sure enough, a shadow stirred only seconds later; too quick, too graceful for a walker, Daryl surmised with a small wave of adrenaline. He kept watching as the shadow took form, emerging in the shape of a woman flanked by two others, a flash of metal somewhere– 

 

With an ear-splitting squeal, the boar took off.

 

Daryl swore under his breath, abruptly standing up from his hiding spot. He was hemmed in on too many sides by bushes and rocks, and the damn thing was coming right at him. No room to jump, no time to get out of the way. For a blinding split second all he could think was that the impact from an animal that big would snap his legs clean in half.

 

He released the arrow along with a wordless prayer.

 

The squealing died instantly and, after a few more clumsy steps, the hog dropped like an anvil no more than five paces away. The arrow had pierced its eye all the way through to lodge deep within the brain.

 

Letting out a shaky breath, Daryl came forward to retrieve the arrow and wiped it on his pant leg. He was in the middle of notching it once more, a motion so routine as to be almost unconscious, when he remembered with a jolt that he wasn’t alone out here. His eyes jumped back up along with the reloaded bow, aimed squarely at a fierce-looking woman appraising him with an unreadable expression. Everything about her screamed ‘do not fuck with me’, from her biceps and the sword clutched in her right hand to the chains gripped in the other.

 

All this Daryl processed peripherally, his focus honing in on the two armless, jawless walkers shambling in her wake at the other end of those chains. He almost couldn’t believe he was seeing right. They were just standing there, hollow-eyed and docile, looking around disinterestedly like a pair of cows. Or pack mules, more accurately; he could see now that they were carrying bags and equipment, and for a moment he was actually kind of impressed at the ingenuity of it.

 

“Nice pets,” he growled, realizing belatedly that the seconds had been ticking by in complete silence.

 

The woman’s expression didn’t waver an inch as she gestured with her sword tip towards the hog. “Nice shot.”

 

“Not like I had much choice. You do it on purpose? Sendin’ it my way like that?” _Helluva way to kill a man._

 

She regarded him for a moment, subtly tightening her grip on the sword. Damn thing looked like she’d got it at one of those nerd conventions, where people dress up like elves and warlocks and shit.

 

“Didn’t know anyone else was out here,” she replied. “My friend is waiting somewhere behind you with a gun; I was driving it towards her.”

 

At the mention of someone else, Daryl quickly glanced over his shoulder _._ Finding no sign of anyone – not that he was willing to bet she was bluffing – he cautiously looked back her way. “Hope it’s a big gun,” he drawled. “It’d take more than some pea shooter to take that bastard down.”

 

He couldn’t be sure, but it looked like the woman’s eyebrow inched a little higher. “Only took one pointy stick to do the job.”

 

“I got good aim.”

 

“So does she.”

 

He lowered the crossbow a fraction, still unsure what to make of her. 

 

She nodded to the carcass once more. “So. Who gets the pig? You took it down, but I’ve been following it since this morning.”

 

“So’ve I,” Daryl countered.

 

“It came into our camp last night and ate all our food,” she explained, curling her lip. “ _You_ don’t look like you’re starving.”

 

“Got a bunch o’ people to look after who might say otherwise.”

 

She eyed him up and down. “How many, exactly?”

 

Daryl snorted. _Nice try, lady._

 

Her next question nearly froze the blood in his veins.

 

“Your name Daryl?”

 

His fingers tightened around the bow, leveling it again. After inwardly scrambling to recall if he’d ever met or seen her before, if maybe they’d crossed paths once in their old lives, he managed to grind out, “Good guess. How’d you come by that?”

 

The woman tilted her head to the side a little. “My friend was traveling with another group awhile back. Mentioned someone named Daryl. Said he was a bona fide southerner straight outta the backwoods. Liked to use a crossbow.”

 

Something clicked in his head. For a few seconds he forgot how to breathe, and he had to wet his suddenly dry lips before asking, “What’s your friend’s name?”

 

She jerked her chin towards the trees behind him. “Ask her yourself.”

 

He slowly looked back at the sound of approaching footsteps, someone tromping noisily through the thicket towards the clearing.

 

“Jesus, Michonne,” a familiar voice grumbled. “We had a plan, didn’t we?”

 

Daryl could only stare, literally dumbstruck, as Andrea came stumbling out into the open, grappling with a few branches along the way. 

 

“I waited exactly where you said,” she continued irritably, half-turning to disentangle her shirt from the underbrush. “What happened, did we lose –”

 

She cut herself off the second she spotted him. Her hand darted instinctively towards the gun Daryl knew she had tucked in the back of her jeans before recognition sparked in her eyes, freezing her in place. Her mouth dropped open in a soundless ‘o’, mirroring his blank expression as he gaped right back.

 

“Daryl?” she whispered.

 

The first thought he registered was, _she looks okay._ Maybe a little leaner than he remembered, her face more angular, her clothes almost as filthy as his. But her eyes were as sharp and blue-green as ever, her hair – longer now – still falling effortlessly around her neck and shoulders like a mane.

 

Okay? She looked…she looked…

 

Amazing, fantastic, beautiful, _alive._

 

A slow, incredulous smile melted across her face, and even from several yards away he could swear she was already tearing up. Her hands flew to cover the lower half of her face.

 

“Oh my God,” she mumbled through her fingers, “Daryl…”

 

“Holy shit,” he finally managed. “Andrea –”

 

In the space of those three words, she closed the gap between them.

 

His crossbow slipped from hand just as she slammed into him, knocking him back a couple of steps until he dug in his heels steadied them both. For a few seconds they were a confused tangle of limbs and searching, disbelieving eyes. Then her arms hooked around his neck with ferocious joy, and for a few dizzying seconds Daryl had absolutely no idea what to call the feeling bursting through his chest.

 

Eventually he managed to squirm free, but only so that he could grab her by the shoulders and keep her still.

 

“Jesus Christ,” he breathed, just . . . _looking_ at her. She was solid. She was real, she was here, and as long as he was holding on to her she wouldn’t disappear again. “The hell happened? T said he saw you go down back at the farm –”

 

“I did, sort of,” she confessed, laughing breathlessly through her tears as she gripped the front of his shirt. “A walker fell on me when I was trying to get to Carol.”

 

Daryl shook his head at her, part admiring and part admonishing. “An’ what, they just . . . took off? Left you like that?”

 

“There was a lot going on,” she conceded, giving her head a brief, dismissive shake. As if it was no big deal at all. As if the closest thing she had to family hadn’t abandoned her all those months ago with hardly a backwards glance. “I’m sure I looked like a goner.” 

 

His hands slid down to cradle the backs of her elbows. “Knew I shoulda gone back,” he murmured. His voice was low and bitter, dragged out like gravel from the pit of his stomach. “I _knew_ you were alive. All this time, I –”

 

“It would have been suicide for you to even try,” she cut in softly. Her hands strayed up to lightly frame his face, passing over the grime and stubble coating it, before drifting back down to his chest. “The place was overrun, Daryl.”

 

“The others won’t believe it,” he declared, already imagining the looks on their faces. “Swear to God, Carol’s gonna lose her damn mind.”

 

She snapped upright as if by an electric shock. “Is everyone okay? Did we all make it off the farm?”

 

“Most of us. ‘Cept for Jimmy an’ Patricia.” He hesitated, eyes gauging hers more closely. “Shane.”

 

He watched her deflate a fraction. Her hands loosened, fingers splaying across his chest as if to root her in place.

 

She nodded, swallowing a little. “Walkers?”

 

“No. Rick.” He winced again. “Guess there’s a lot you need get caught up on.”

The sword-wielding woman he had completely forgotten about finally moved around from behind him to stand at Andrea’s side. Her walker pets followed robotically. Daryl stiffened at their nearness, despite feeling a morbid flicker of curiosity.

 

“You alright?” the woman asked.

 

Andrea glanced her way distractedly. “Yeah. Just . . . he was a friend.”

 

Daryl dropped his hands and took a step back. “Wasn’t Rick’s,” he grunted. “Not in the end, at least. Trust me, it had to be done.”

 

Andrea just shook her head and said nothing to that, but the firm set of her teeth behind those lips made Daryl infinitely glad he wasn’t the one who’d have to explain things to her.

 

“Come on,” he prompted, turning to regard the boar gathering flies at his back. “Help me cover this thing with some branches an’ we’ll head back.” Glancing at the woman – Michonne, Andrea had called her – he gestured abstractly towards her walkers. “Mind leavin’ the chain gang here? The stink oughtta come in handy. Plus I ain’t sure they’d go over well with the others.”

 

After exchanging another look with Andrea, Michonne nodded and walked over to a nearby tree to wrap the chains around its trunk.

 

“Back?” Andrea echoed, taking a step closer to Daryl. “Back where?”

 

He smiled – actually smiled, exquisitely unaware how thrilled she was to see it.

 

“You’ll see.”


End file.
